Developing Integrated Sustainable Product-‐Process-‐
Service Systems at the Early Product Design Stages
AbstractThe paper describes a systematic approach that aims to foster the development of sustainable integrated systems of products and services since the very early phases of conceptual design. The procedure helps the designer in redesigning a product (as well as the related processes and services) to reduce its overall impacts. The method takes into account environmental, social and economic aspects concerning a wide range of stakeholders.
The approach adopts the Functional Analysis methodology, which is used to: (i) characterize the product (either an artifact or a service) as an integrated product-process-service system; (ii) identify the design analogies with existing products in order to identify the similarities in terms of sustainability impacts. The improved design concept, along with the related environmental, economic and societal characteristics, is used as a starting point for the successive detailed design. A case study illustrates the method and proposes a redesign of the product-process-service for a pram.
Keywords: Sustainability; LCA; Functional Analysis; Design by analogy; Radical Innovation; Needs analysis
1. INTRODUCTION AND STATE OF THE ART
Research in the field of eco-design has reached a certain maturity. In last two decades a high number of tools and methods for designing sustainable products and services and assessing their environmental impacts have been proposed. There is now a strong need to understand how to overcome the weaknesses of existing solutions as well as to find the best way to match them in more integrated and effective solutions. The present paper is a contribution towards that end.
An introduction of the research areas involved in the presented approach will help the reader to understand the meaning of the adopted solutions. In particular the research involves the areas of: environmental impacts assessment (Life Cycle Assessment in particular); tools for products Eco-Design; Methods for sustainable design of product-service systems. Functional analysis is finally introduced as the backbone of the presented approach.
1.1 Life cycle assessment
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a structured approach that aims to assess the potential environmental impacts and resources consumption
throughout a product (good or service) lifecycle (Finnveden et al., 2009). Despite successful implementations of the tool, several weaknesses are still far to be solved. Firstly, many practical approaches focuses only on manufacturing and part of the use stages, while several researches highlight the need to concentrate on the total life cycle stages from pre-manufacturing to post-use (Badurdeen et al., 2010; Jaafar et al., 2007; Jawahir et al., 2006). In relation to this, further issues need to be addressed: (i) time and knowledge necessity; (ii) input data availability; (iii) input data consistency; and (iv) early design stage applicability.
Time and knowledge necessity
It has been widely demonstrated that the amount of time and costs needed for an effective Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) is a critical issue, especially for SMEs (Masoni at al., 2002), that have to face also with the lack of both data availability and internal know how for performing an effective inventory. An interesting approach conceived to deal with the need of time and the high level of knowledge requested by traditional Process-LCA are the Output LCA (IO-LCA) models. Based on the well-known Input-Output Analysis (IOA) born in the field of economics (Leontief, 1936), such methods aims to “evaluate the environmental interventions generated throughout the upstream supply-chain to deliver a certain amount of different goods and services” (Finnveden et. al., 2009) by means of Input-Output Tables (IOT) typically defined for an average product within a particular sector. In order to reduce the high approximation of IO-LCA results, Hybrid LCA (Moriguchi et. al., 1993) have been developed. With this method, the practitioner combines Process-LCA and IO-LCA, using the former for a comprehensive analysis of the main process and the latter for an approximated evaluation of the farer flows linked to the main process.
Input Data Availability
As mentioned above, the request for data in LCA is very high and the lack of data inevitably leads to restrictions or even errors in final results. Despite many databases are being developed in order to fulfill such a lack of data, a lot of work is still needed. The main issues related to LCA Databases, especially IO Databases, are the need of more completeness of impacts data as well as their full and free accessibility. If the quality of data is getting higher thanks to worldwide progresses in this field, the problem of data accessibility is still far to be solved. Most consistent systems such as Ecoinvent (www.ecoinvent.org) and Simapro (www.simapro.co.uk) are proprietary and allow just trial versions free of charge, as well as CEDA (www.climateearth.com), that provides a specific version for academic organizations. EIO-LCA (www.eiolca.net) is a free tool, although its applicability is limited to IO-LCA field, with the issue of high processes aggregation. Some attempts are being made in order to
develop a free and comprehensive tool that would allow a full access by every user, as well as a consistent set of IO data from many different countries. This is, for example, the aim of International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) (Wolf et al., 2012). A recent effort by United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has been the publication of a set of guidance principles for the development of consistent, high quality and fully accessible LCA databases (UNEP, 2011).
Input Data Consistency
Another critical need to be met is surely the necessity of a consistent set of data and information provided by companies and researchers, and validated by experts, that will allow to meet both transparency and cost/time reduction for further LCA analyses. The projects presented above still lack in this aspect. An already proposed solution is a crowsourcing approach where the economy maps itself while research institutions offer their support and highlight bad assumptions, so that companies that perform weak analysis can be able to understand the problems and then fix their own datasets or production processes (Andrews, 2009). Besides the obvious environmental benefits for the planet, such participating approach would also allow an improvement of companies image and a drastic costs reduction to perform the analysis, as the data collected would be reused by everyone who need them, as well as a worldwide raise of everyone’s knowledge and awareness about sustainability issues.
Early Design Stage Applicability
The need of transparency of information and data consistency goes hand in hand with another, perhaps more pressing, issue. This is the necessity of an appropriate framework for designing products and services that would allow introducing sustainability requirements straight from the conceptual phase, without overlooking all the other needs of “traditional” stakeholders and according to the well-known necessity of time-to-market reduction. The need for a different way to conceive sustainable design comes from the following consideration: the awareness of the importance of tools like LCA, especially for reaching voluntary environmental labels (e.g., EU EcoLabels), combined with the above mentioned weaknesses of such method, often leads to a simple “certification ritualism” performed both by businesses and consultants in order to meet binding or voluntary requirements. Thus, the risk is a low consideration for results completeness or at least a reduction of the potentially achievable environmental benefits. As a consequence, LCA often becomes just an ex-post tool, that assesses products environmental impacts only after the main design choices have been performed. Such a behavior also undermines the credibility of sustainability tools in design.
1.2 Tools for Products Eco-Design
The challenge for reaching sustainable production and consumption in the early future has been accepted in various research areas. Concerning the field of eco-design and product life cycle management, many research works have been presented in last decade in order to develop greener products and services (Russo et al., 2014). Maxwell et al. (2006) classified existing approaches for developing sustainable products and services basing on five possible goals that can be achieved: (a) Improving TBL (Triple Bottom Line) sustainability (Elkington, 1998) performance of industry; (b) Improving the environmental performance of industry; (c) Developing products with reduced environmental impact; (d) Shift to system focus; (e) Developing sustainable products and services.
In addition, in order to develop products with reduced environmental impact, Russo (2011) detailed four action levels: (1) Existing product improvement; (2) Existing product redesign; (3) New product concept definition; (4) New production system definition. While various tools for later-stage design have been successfully implemented in the industry (Russo et al., 2011), there is still a remarkable lack of research behind the definition and application of eco-design approaches in early design stages (i.e. the third goal), despite the potential of radical innovation from conceptual design is vast. The focus on sustainability from the beginning of the design process allows to reach more favorable environmental, social and market performances, with a better comprehension and translation of all stakeholders’ needs and product/service functionalities required. Oehlberg et al. (2009) explored such aspect in the field of human-centered product design.
1.3 Towards Integrated Product-Service Systems
New business opportunities, demand for products dematerialization, new channels provided by the internet, are some examples of reasons why industry from many different fields is rapidly moving toward the design of artifacts and services together. This paradigm is widely known as Product Service System (PSS), that can be defined as a marketable set of products and services capable of jointly fulfilling a user’s need. The product/service ratio in this set can vary, either in terms of function fulfillment or economic value (Goedkoop et al., 1999). In addition the design of new product-service systems may involve the development or use of ‘eco-efficient’ products that are more efficient in their use of energy and materials and generate less pollution and waste (Roy, 2000). Among the various attempts to better characterize the concept of PSS, Sustainable Product and Service Development (SPSD) (Maxwell et al., 2006) is a remarkable approach that starts from the function to be provided in order to understand whether a product, a service or a PSS is the best solution to achieve TBL (Triple Bottom Line) sustainability criteria.
Nevertheless, many aspects concerning early stage innovation for sustainability still need to be deepen. In particular, the issues presented above in relation with LCA and Eco-design tools need to be faced to reach effective and systematic applications of methods for radical eco-innovation in industry and service fields.
The paper presents a novel design framework based on Functional Analysis (FA), that aims to achieve a quick and effective overall environmental assessment of the analyzed product/service concept, and a consistent definition of the optimal Product-Process-Service (PPS) system that best fulfil stakeholders and users’ needs as well as environmental sustainability criteria. Such perspective is in accordance with the well-known TBL view.
1.4 Functional Analysis
FA represents a useful tool in product design process. Over the past decades several standardized representation of product functionalities have been developed (Pahl and Beitz, 1984; Sasajima et al., 1996; Umeda et al., 1995). Such approaches represent the product through functions linked in a causal chain by the flows, which are the actors involved in the action described by the function. The series of functions and flows are often graphically organized in the so-called Functional maps or Functional flow block diagrams. Functions are expressed by verb+flow couples. Hirtz et al. (2001) developed a standardized function-related terminology set in order to obtain standardized representations of functions. Concerning the flows, there are three kinds of flows involved in the global functioning of a product: material, energy or signal (Pahl and Beitz, 1984). FA allows to translate the user needs into product requirements since the conceptual design phase. Yu et al. (1998), for instance, approached product architectures from a functional perspective by defining the architecture based on customer demands.
Design tools grounded on FA can support sustainable design of products. Bryant et al. (2004) elaborated a redesign technique based on relationships between products functional modules and assemblies, quantifying redesign potentials through the application of an Elimination Preference Index metric.
The paper aims to achieve, also thanks to the potentialities of FA, the following goals:
A comprehensive design of a sustainable integrated product-process-service system (PPS);
A preliminary environmental assessment of the analyzed PPS concept; An effective individuation and selection of the most critical
stakeholders to be satisfied, mainly in terms of environmental benefits; A preliminary business strategy, consistent to the system designed.
2. THE METHOD
The method presented is a top-down framework for sustainable product/services development based on FA, that is the basis for the Sustainability Assessment by Analogy: an approach for performing an estimation of the overall environmental impacts potentially due to the design concept. The product in particular is seen, independently of its nature, as a PPS system: an integrated system of Product(s), Process(es) and Service(s) involved throughout the whole lifecycle. For identifying the key information necessary to the analysis the authors refer to an ontology known as FBS (Function-Behavior-State) (Gero and Kannengiesser, 2002; Umeda et al., 1995) and its evolutions (Cascini et al., 2010). According to such ontology a system can be abstracted and decomposed into:
- Needs: the exigencies from where the existence of the artifact is originated;
- Scenes: homogeneous groups of phases belonging to the same life cycle stage (Hayes, 1979);
- Phases: homogeneous set of functions belonging to/performed by the same components and characterized by the same physics/chemistry/logics (Gabelloni et. al. 2011);
- Functions: the result of the user’s interpretative process about the product’s physical behaviours conditioned by the goal that the user himself wants to achieve by using the product (Fantoni, 2011);
- Behaviours: the way the physical and chemical state of the product evolves in time and in its environment;
- States: “a property at an instant of time of a system (and environment), that is involved in an interaction between a system and its environment. As a consequence of an interaction [behaviour], the property of a system (and environment) changes (i.e. state change)” Umeda et al., 1995);
- Features: the specific characteristics of a single part of the product, in terms of its geometrical entities as well as properties of the material it is made of, etc. (Gabelloni et. al. 2011).
It is therefore clear how functions are linked with the goal of the users and therefore how they are suitable to move from needs to physical structure through the behaviours. Many authors already analyzed the relationship between such elements, as Gero and Kannengiesser (2002) and Umeda et al. (1995). In particular Cascini et al. (2013) present an extension of Gero’s Function-Behaviour-Structure (FBS) framework aimed at representing Need and Requirements and highlighting their relationships with the Function, the Behaviour and the Structure of a product.
The 7 steps composing the Sustainable Assessment by analogy procedure are shown in Figure 1.
Step 1. Main users’ needs analysis
The starting point is the identification of the main users among all the stakeholders (which will be identified later in the method) acting in the
PPS System. The analysis of the main users involved in the analyzed system starts in particular from the elicitation of their main needs, by means of the vast set of tools already existing in literature, such as Ethnographic/Nethnographic techniques; Structured Interviews; Experts Analysis; SWOT analysis; etc. (Watkins et al., 2012).
Figure 1: The method for sustainable PPS Systems design Step 2. Initiating the Functional Analysis
The previous information are the basis of the “rough” functional decomposition, where the main functions and flows are identified without analyzing the elementary functions in details. A detailed functional map is gradually developed as the PPS concept is affined in next steps.
It should be noted that at this step data about the required performances of the product can be collected. Traditional FA theory takes into account only part of such information. In order to include them in the functional representation, additional information on the extent of some flows can be added. For example, if a designer wants to design a mobile phone that requires low electricity, the input flows of some of its functions would be indicated with the adjective “low”.
The needs that do not impact on the physical/technical aspects of the product cannot be directly translated into functions and flows. However they should be taken into account especially for the analysis of the services and business models for the PSS. These observations will hold true also for the step 5.2.
Step 3. Concept Definition and Selection
After the identification of the main functionalities, the concept generation phase begins. The generated concepts are then selected, on the basis of their compliance to the users’ needs and the importance of the latter, in order to identify the best ones to develop. Examples of most adopted
selection techniques are (Ulrich and Eppinger, 1995): Multivoting; Pros and Cons.; Prototyping and testing; Decision matrices (Concept Screening Concept Scoring).
Step 4. Concept Features Identification
A more consistent FA of the selected concept is now performed in detail in order to define the physical structures as well as the features. Actually, every feature exists to carry on at least a particular function in a certain moment of the product life cycle. Since functions are a solid bridge between needs and features, therefore the physical characteristics of the product are identified in a more systematic way and they are all labeled with their associated function. This way allows also to track the links between features and needs (through the features behaviours functions needs chain). In this step the designed features are aggregated, defining a sort of conceptual bill of materials since at this stage of the design process it is neither possible, nor necessary to reach the analysis of the elementary features such as the stiffness of the material or the tolerance of a component.
Step 5. Scenes and Stakeholders
After this preliminary analysis, a characterization of each scene involved in the PPS lifecycle has to be performed. Such an evaluation goes in parallel with the analysis of the entire set of stakeholders, and relative needs, potentially involved all along the PPS.
Step 5.1. Scenes Identification and evaluation
This step starts with a decomposition of the life cycle of concept’s PPS. The decomposition is based on time, space and logic rules, that provide a systematic representation of product life cycle in several smaller scenes (previously defined as “homogeneous groups of phases belonging to the same life cycle stage”). Such approach is close to Hayes’s model (Hayes, 1979), that defines an history as “a connected piece of space-time, typically bounded on all four dimension, in which something happens. [Moreover] space is made up of places and space-time is made up of histories”. In addition, this also meets with LCA approach, which requires the identification of product's life cycle stages within defined boundaries with a necessary spatial, logical and temporal decomposition of the related processes.
Let us refer, for example, to the early stages of the life cycle of a generic artefact. In order to identify an homogeneous group of phases that would simplify the analysis of economic, social and environmental implications, it is possible to refer to several criteria, such as, for example:
- (Space) The different geographic distribution of: raw materials extraction sites; raw materials processing plants; etc.
- (Time) The temporal distribution/sequence of the activities related to early life cycle steps, such as: time between extraction, processing and distribution to manufacturer; etc.
- (Logic) The logical distribution of the activities related to early life cycle steps: number of possible raw materials/components and relative activities; dependences between macro activities; etc.
The qualitative analysis of such criteria will lead to the identification of several scenes, that can be different from common LCA phases. An example of possible scenes concerning a PPS System are showed in next section (Figure 3).
After the identification of the scenes, a correlation analysis is performed, in order to evaluate the links among them. Correlation analysis approaches for the evaluation of products life cycle stages have been already presented in several research studies. The main distinguishing element among such approaches is the goal of the analysis. According to Sarkis (2003) a technique based on analytical network process (ANP) could be helpful to assess the relative importance of each phase on the basis of specific factors. In addition, Bryant et al. (2004) presented another interesting framework to evaluate the relative importance among the life cycle factors connected with different phases. Their evaluation is based on a pair-wise comparison in terms of level of importance between pre-identified life cycle factors, generating a list of priorities opportunely normalized. So “for instance, assembly time is considered 7 times more important than ease of handling but only 3 times more important than dismantleability” Bryant et al. (2004).
On the other hand, in our method the analysis focuses on the intensity of the correlation between two scenes. As shown later in the case study (Figure 3), the result is a graph were the nodes are the scenes and the edges are the links between them. The width of the line represents the intensity of the correlation. In order to evaluate the relative importance among the scenes, the necessary criteria are defined. An example of comparison criteria is presented in next section. The so-built graph is then translated in his correspondent matrix, in order to perform the necessary calculations for the identification of the most influential scenes. Weights are calculated by summing the correlation indexes concerning each single scene, as shown in the case study presented in next section.
Therefore, it is evident that this is a critical step to have a first overall understanding of the economic/environmental/social implications that the modification of a particular aspect of a product component (and the relative scene) implies on other scenes.
In parallel with the scenes identification and evaluation, all the other critical stakeholders involved in the product life cycle are identified. Such information can be assessed through questionnaires, experts panels or data found in literature. Thus, each stakeholder, selected as a point of reference of the conceptual analysis, will provide a set of additional needs which will be translated into (high level) functions related to the FA phases and so to the PPS scenes. We can have different kind of phases belonging to the scenes: process phases concerning the manufacturing process as well as the disposal of the product or use phase related to the utilization of the product by the user etc. By doing so the previous FA is enhanced identifying new functions. As a result, the FA is refined step by step until a full functional map concerning the whole PPS System is reached. In some cases new product concepts will be generated in order to better satisfy the stakeholder’s needs. This incremental and progressive approach will also help to identify the physical and non-physical characteristics of the concept and relative stakeholders/scenes involved. Step 6. Impacts Assessment by Analogy
The whole volume of information coming out from the analysis performed in previous steps enables the designer to construct the physical structures of the product. Thus, at this stage, an environmental impacts assessment by analogy with similar products (such as: materials characteristics; shape; production techniques; distribution process; etc.) can be performed. The concept/technique of analogy is often used in several New Product Development (NPD) methods. For instance McAdams and Wood (2002), starting from the identification of the users’ needs and the corresponding functions, defined a method to measure products similarity. This measure is combined with a simple process to provide a novel and powerful design-by-analogy procedure. On the other hand we use analogy in order to evaluate the environmental impacts of the analyzed product. To make such estimation effective, some correction factors must be used in order to adapt the assessment of similar product to the examined product. For instance a front wheel of a wheelchair, which presents strong analogies to the wheels of a shopping trolley as well as a pram. Therefore its environmental impact can be estimated starting from the existing LCA data of the two similar products, corrected and adapted by means of factors concerning, for instance, dimensions (e.g. doubled radius), weight (e.g. 1.5 times heavier), etc. The output of the assessment would not be a precise calculation, actually impossible at this early design stage, but rather an estimation of the order of magnitude of each impact value.
Step 7. Concept Improvement
Thanks to the PPS System impact estimation, the most critical scenes and the stakeholders’ needs most involved by the environmental issues are
identified. Such evaluation gives several information/clues about which part of the PPS concept can be redesigned to meet a higher sustainability. The global output of the method then will be the input of a bottom-up detailed design of the PPS system, by means of proper eco-tools and structured LCA analysis (Russo, 2011). Such redesign activity will be drastically shorten in respect with the common amount of time and resources needed, since a priority list of items will be already available in order to fulfil the needs of users, environment and all other critical stakeholders involved within the PPS System.
3. CASE STUDY
In order to highlight the potential of the method, a case study is now presented. The goal is to develop a new PPS System for families in order to satisfy the main function “to transport a baby” in a TBL perspective. The word “baby” refers to children all along the early childhood (0-3 years).
3.1 Main users’ needs analysis
The analysis starts by identifying the needs of the two main users: parents (by means of questionnaires and interviews) and babies (by means of observations and parents/experts interviews).
A 1-3-5 scale has been used in order to weight the importance of the need (1: low; 3: medium; 5: high). The identified needs and bracketed weights are listed below:
Parents’ needs: handy (3); not physically cumbersome (3); easy to use (1); flexible (5); useful for the whole early childhood (5); good aspect (1); durable (5); easily washable (5); customizable (3).
Baby needs: hygienic (5); safe (from risky materials, atmospheric agents, unpredictable movements) (5); ergonomic (5); comfortable (5).
3.2 Functions and Flows
The main function (“to transport a baby”) implies several further functions, identified from the main users’ needs listed above. We consider needs whose weight value is higher than 3. A partial set of functions and flows is shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Main users’ needs and relative functions/flows
Needs Functions/flows
Handy Human Energy flow (low)
Hygienic Protect (from hazardous agents)
Comfortable Support, mate, stabilize, maintain (the correct position), Contain.
Safe Mate, deform, adsorb (impact)
Useful for the whole early
Durable Maintain (surface integrity), Protect (from external and atmospherics agents)
Customizable Adapt (aspect)
Not physically
Cumbersome Decrease [dimensions (as a resultantfunction)] Easily washable Separate (components), remove (dirt) 3.3 Concepts definition and selection
Starting from the identified functions, we are now able to define many possible concepts that fulfil the analysed needs. Concepts generated are, for the sake of clarity and simplicity of explanation of the method, the following: a pram; a baby carrier; a bicycle baby carrier. The application of decision matrixes on those concepts revealed that the pram is the concept that better satisfies the selected needs, also on the basis of their weights (Concept Scoring method: Ulrich and Eppinger, 1995). Indeed the baby carrier is useless when the baby grows up, because the weight of the baby would load on the parents’ shoulders and backs. On the other hand the bicycle baby carrier, although it does not present such problem, is generally less used and does not respond to the needs of not physically cumbersome and handy.
Thus the functions to be focused on, in order to innovate the product, are to adapt in terms of shape and change dimensions in order to meet the child growth. The definition of the concept from main users’ needs allows the development of its physical structure so the preliminary evaluations of the environmental, social and economic impacts on other stakeholders involved. This is therefore the reason why only main users’ needs are considered at this stage.
3.4 Features Identification
The list of identified functions and the performed functional decomposition allowed the identification of main features of the chosen concept.
Figure 2 synthetically shows the link between some of the main product functions and its features.
Some functions, such as Maintain (surface integrity), Protect (from external and atmospherics agents), Adapt (shape) and Change (dimensions) must be performed essentially by all the pram components, and therefore they are not included in the Figure.
Figure 2 Representation of the relationship between product features and functions
Moreover, Figure 2 does not list all the functions carried out by the different pram components, but it highlights only those functions that are more relevant at this stage of the NPD process. On the other hand in the following steps it would be necessary to examine all the functions carried on by every single component.
This first analysis of the features includes theoretical dimensions and materials of mattress and internal padding, which are the components analyzed in the case study. An extract of the bill of materials of the concept is reported in Table 2.
The general characteristics of components C4 and C5 are the following: C4. Mattress: external fabric 100% cotton, stuffing 100% polyester; dimensions 35 x 70 cm; weight 0,6 Kg.
C5. Internal Padding: mix cotton/polyester; dimensions 40 x 80 cm; weight 0,5 Kg.
Table 2: Concept Bill of Materials
# Name N Materials
C1 Wheel unit 8 ABS
C2 Front independent swivel axle
2 ABS
C3 Frame 1 ABS + Aluminum
C4 Mattress 1 Polyester + Cotton
C5 Internal Padding 1 Polyester + Cotton
C7 Seat 1 ABS 3.5 Scenes and Stakeholders
3.5.1 Scenes Identification and Evaluation
The physical characteristics of the concept are the starting point for giving an overall outline of its lifecycle, in terms of scenes and involved stakeholders.
The defined scenes are represented in Figure 3, that reports the PPS graph including the intensity of correlation among the scenes. This qualitative evaluation allows a first assessment of most critical scenes within the PPS System. Such values are then translated into the correlation matrix in Table 3.
The evaluation was performed considering the following parameters: number of the product components handled/used in both the scenes; size/importance of the relationship between stakeholders belonging to
the scenes;
number of the same stakeholders present in both the scenes; extent of the economic transactions between the scenes;
how much a failure in a scene affects on the efficacy and efficiency of the other scene.
Figure 3: Graphical representation of main possible scenes involving the PPS System AS IS. Arrows represent the linkage among two scenes. Their widths are explained in Figure. An example of high correlation is the one between RM Processing and Production, as the former is a condicio sine qua non to perform the latter, with a strong connection in terms of flow of material resources, information, monetary and non-monetary transactions, employees, etc.
Table 3 Scenes correlation matrix AS IS (1:Low; 3:Medium; 9:High) R M E xt ra ct R M P ro ce ss P ro du ct io n D is tr ib ut io n P ur ch as e U se C ol le ct io n D is as se m bl y R ec yc lin g D is po sa l w ei gh ts % RM Extraction _ 9 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6% RM Processing _ 9 0 0 0 0 0 9 0 13% Production _ 9 1 1 1 0 0 0 12% Distribution _ 9 0 0 0 0 0 9% Purchase _ 9 0 0 0 0 9% Use _ 3 3 0 9 12% Collection _ 9 3 9 12% Disassembly _ 3 9 8% Recycling _ 0 7% Disposal _ 13%
In this case, two of the most correlated scenes are: Disposal, which is highly correlated with: Disassembly, Use, and Collection; and RM Processing, highly correlated with RM extraction, Production and Recycling; as well as Production scene.
3.5.2 Stakeholders analysis
The stakeholders to be considered are the ones who take advantage of the PPS introduction, following a TBL view. Each of them has one or more environmental, social or economic needs that the new PPS aims to satisfy. A preliminary analysis identified the following beneficiary stakeholders categories, according to Phillips and Reichart (2000) and Benoıt et al. (2010). Each Category has been exploded in many stakeholders. As a detailed PPS life cycle cannot be defined at this stage, a generic value chain can be considered in order to identify the potential macro-stakeholders involved.
Table 4. PPS Stakeholders’ needs analysis and evaluation. Last column indicates, for each stakeholder, the arithmetic mean (M) of the considered weights.
The identified categories and the relative stakeholders are the following: Users (Parents; Baby); Consumers (RM processor; Product Manufacturer; Product Distributor; Services Provider; Buyer); Natural environment (Air; Soil; Water); Workers (Employees all along the supply chain); Local Community (Local institutions; Citizens); Society (Local Society; Global Society).
The evaluation of these stakeholders allowed the identification of the needs listed below. Each need has been weighted, by means of a 1-3-5 scale, in order to rank the importance of each stakeholder for reaching both sustainability and market needs (Table 4).
A simple arithmetic mean (M) among needs’ weights for each stakeholders allows the identification of the most critical ones in terms of
economical, societal and environmental challenges. These are: Manufacturer/Distributor; Natural Environment and Local Society; Local Community (Institutions and Citizens).
The information about most critical PPS scenes and stakeholders, allows the identification of new functions and so the enrichment of the functional architecture of the concept. In fact those needs who are directly connected with the product structure/features can be generally “translated” in new functions. Equally also the other needs more linked with economic, organizational and social aspects, such as “Reduce local pollution” or “Economy and technology development”, should be considered in the further/following phases of the development of the PPS. In particular they could be important for the design and definition of the business models and services of the new PPS.
3.6 Impacts by analogy
Now it is possible to perform an environmental impact assessment by analogy. For explanation purpose the analysis focuses on components C4 and C5. For what concerns the component C4 (Mattress), the LCA data from [23] about the cradle to grave LCA of a bed mattress can be used. The data have been re-calculated according to two correction factors (weight and dimensions) and results highlight the high impacts in terms of Global Warming Potential and Stratospheric Ozone Depletion.
Although this is an overall estimation of the environmental impacts, at this step it is important to refer to the order of magnitude of each impact. In addition to the estimation of the environmental impacts of the materials composing the component C4, the LCA analysis performed by Wolf et al. (2010) indicated that the impact due to disposal scene (solid waste) are at least three order of magnitude higher than other scenes. Avoiding or limiting disposal of component C4 is then the focal point of the necessary innovation, principally due to partially non-recyclable materials and to the disassembly difficulties. In addition (and in general), the effect is tremendously amplified if this aspect is related to the scarce rate of use of such product: a pram has an extremely longer useful life than the 1-2 years of normal use. From LCA of Cotton and Cotton/Polyester fabrics (and fibers) production in (Kalliala and Nousiainen, 1999) it is possible to estimate by analogy the environmental impacts of C5 materials. The results of such analysis highlights the high impacts of such elements are due to production and disposal scenes, confirming the qualitative evaluation performed in section 3.5. A Partial report of the considered data is shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4 Extract of the Impacts assessment of Cotton and Cotton/Polyester fabrics (and fibers) production. (Kalliala and Nousiainen, 1999)
3.7 Concept improvement
A possible solution that partly meets the need “product useful for the whole early childhood” and therefore the functions adapt shape and change dimensions, (i.e. extend the usability of the product), is the trio system pram-stroller-car seat. This solution is composed of separate modules that can be used in different childhood phases as well as for different needs. However, such solution is not optimal for performing the “adapt” function, as they are actually different products (i.e. modules) that meet the same customer need. In fact, Trio uses only one supporting frame and one moving system (wheels). In addition, this solution does not allow the fulfilment of other stakeholders needs such as natural environment, local society and product manufacturer. Thus, an extended view at the whole PPS level can be useful to fully meet all stakeholders’ needs. For practical reasons, only one conceptual solution derived from the qualitative and quantitative impacts analysis is here described. It consists of an integrated service of pram/stroller renting, partial customization (e.g. color and accessories), maintenance and regeneration. Such a system, focused on product, service and process at the same time, would delineate not only a brand new product for babies market but also a new business model for the producer.
The upgraded concept delineates new functions and new scenes for the whole PPS system. The graph describing the to be configuration of the system is shown in Figure 5, that also highlights the new set of linkages among the scenes.
Figure 5: PPS System Life cycle Scenes TO BE. New scenes are highlighted in grey.
As a consequence correlations among the scenes vary as shown in Table 5. In particular, it is evident that the PPS concept improvement led to a 100% reduction of the incidence of “Disposal” scene in the complexity of the system. On the contrary, there is a higher incidence of the three scenes where the improvement intervention was higher: Production; Disassembly; and Recycling. Which is in line with the improvement purposes.
Table 5. Scenes correlation matrix TO BE (1:Low; 3:Medium; 9:High). Variations in percentage of the relative weights in comparison with the AS IS situation are shown in the last column. R M E xt ra ct R M P ro ce ss P ro du ct io n D is tr ib ut io n P ur ch as e U se C ol & M ai n D is as se m bl y R ec yc li ng D is po sa l w ei gh ts % % V ar ia tio n RM Extraction _ 9 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 6% 0% RM Processing _ 9 0 0 0 0 0 9 - 14% 0% Production _ 9 1 0 9 0 0 - 16% +23% Distribution _ 9 0 0 0 0 - 10% 0% Purchase _ 9 0 0 0 - 10% 0% Use _ 9 0 0 - 10% -6%
Col & Main _ 9 0 - 14% -7%
Disassembly _ 9 - 10% +11%
Recycling _ - 10% +17%
Disposal _ 0% -100%
Such analysis allows a further detailed environmental and social impact assessment that will be performed beside a detailed design of the selected concept (in order to meet partial customizability and frequent use and sterilization requirements). However, it is already possible to provide
objective preliminary measurements of the performance of improvement of the three sustainability pillars, as described in next sub-sections.
3.7.1 Social Performance
The provided solution focuses his attention on the improvement of the social aspects mainly related to Main Users and Local Community, as detailed in Table 6.
Table 6. List of TO BE concept solutions that fulfill PPS stakeholders’ needs from a social point of view.
Stakeholder s
Needs Solutions
Main Users Handy and Useful for whole early childhood
Customizable modular product Hygienic, Durable,
Easily washable Easy to assemble/disassemble, sterilize, and repair system
Accessible Low cost system
Local community (Institutions and Citizens) Provide Welfare Services
Public-private business model providing welfare services for families
Community Identity Sharing approach
Reduce Landfill Tax Elimination of prams disposal In addition, improvement in Economic and Environmental performances described in next sub-section, allow fulfilling the need of these additional stakeholders:
Manufacturer/Distributor: a new business model partly transformed in services provision; stock saving;
Natural Environment and Local Society: product use rate extension; de-materialization; reuse instead of disposal or recycling; increased resource productivity;
3.7.2 Economic Performance
For the sake of completeness, we now briefly detail the estimation of resource productivity of the new PPS system (as it has been defined), by means of a comparison between the existent business models based on the purchase and the possible borrowing of the pram after the use period, estimated in 5 months (150 days). The hypothesis is a product useful life estimated in 5 years (1825 days). Considered data and final results are reported in Figure 6.
The as is situation entails a use rate equal to 150/1825 = 8%. The mean number of children per European family is 1.5, so the above use rate can be updated as (150*1,5)/1825 = 12%. Let us suppose a 40% of cases in which the product is borrowed to familiars or friends, so that the pram has a double use rate (24%). A weighted mean provides a mean use rate equal
to 17%. The future business model will tremendously increase such use rate, as the pram is loaned out to the customer unless the 5 months period is ended. In this case the customer use rate should reach till 80%, with 20% of useful life spent for renewal, maintenance, customization or buffer. According to existing simplified approaches (see [25]) the resource productivity could increase by a factor of 4,7 (i.e. 0,8/0,17).
Such estimated result, that should be read in terms of order of magnitude, is in line with the Factor X concept requirements [26].
Lastly, an estimation of the necessary “pram fleet” can be performed to better define the scale of materials reduction achievable with the new PPS. The new system would be able to cover, in a local community like Pisa’s one, 1000 families per year, equal to 5000 customers over the 5 years useful life of each product. Therefore, the potential service provision rate is 2,74 customers per day. In order to meet such cyclic request, 411 (i.e. 2,74*150) prams will be necessary.
This result must be raised by a factor 1,2 in order to take the 80% use rate under consideration. The final result is therefore 494 prams able to provide the “baby transport” function to 5000 customers for 5 years. On the contrary, the as is system entails at least 600 new prams sold per year, 3000 in 5 years, in order to fulfill the 60% of users which cannot borrow the pram from others. Such result have been reached focusing on the shift toward a PPS system. A further analysis of the “solid” components of the system, by means of detailed design eco-tools (Russo, 2011), will additionally enhance resources productivity.
Figure 6. Comparison between As is and To Be characteristics for the considered PPS. 3.7.3 Environmental Performance
The analysis shown in the previous sub-section, allows the analyst performing a first objective evaluation of the improvement of the environmental performance of the PPS concept, in terms of order of magnitude. For doing so, it is possible to consider an entire LCA
conducted by Ang and Yifan (2012) on a baby stroller. Aggregated results are shown in Table 7, which indicates a total impact of 321 Kg CO2e (i.e. equivalent CO2). Given the functional and structural analysis of this product with the AS IS system, it is possible to perform a preliminary evaluation of the improvement from the AS IS to the TO BE solution. Since the whole lifecycle has changed, let’s take the prams fleet (Figure 6) as the functional unit. An easy, but significant, calculation is the Kg of equivalent CO2 of the two cases.
- AS IS: 3000*321 Kg = 963000 Kg CO2e/Fleet - TO BE: 494*321 Kg = 158574 Kg Kg CO2e/Fleet.
This means a reduction of almost one order of magnitude of the environmental impact of the PPS system in 5 years of useful life for the considered local community.
Table 7. Carbon footprint for a single baby stroller. Adapted from Ang and Yifan (2012)
Phases kg CO2e / function unit %
Raw materials 294,77 91.71 Manufacturing 12,87 4 Distribution 6,78 2,11 Disposal 6,99 2,17 TOTAL 321 4. SUMMARY
This paper presents a methodology for developing integrated sustainable systems for products, processes and services at the early design stages to evaluate the possibility and, if viable, to foster the development of sustainable integrated systems. The method allows to rethink a PPS in order to better satisfy the needs of multiple stakeholders and to estimate the impacts at societal, economic, environmental level, the related cost, the necessary development time and also issues at later stages. The paper presents a structured approach for sustainability assessment of products and services since the very early phases of concept design. Since the method is conceived to be applied in the early design phase the estimations of costs, impacts, etc.. are performed often by analogy with similar PPS, but such esteems have to be considered only as guidelines and have to be refined in the following phases when the PPS embodiment becomes more and more precise.
The method aims to facilitate the designer to adopt a TBL perspective while developing a product concept. FA is the main basic theory of the approach, which permits the design of a product (either an artifact or a service) strictly conceived to perform in an integrated product-process-service system based on stakeholders needs and also designed to be sustained by a preliminary business strategy.
A case study about the development of a new product concept for carrying babies has been described in order to demonstrate the application of the methodology. A new PPS concept has been developed starting from the needs identified by the analysis of the main users. The concept improvement performance has been detailed on the basis of the three sustainability pillars. The methodology, in fact, is conceived in order that the analyst can assess the overall social, economic and environmental performance of the selected concept. From an environmental point of view, it has been possible to assess the order of magnitude of the reduction of CO2e. Social benefits have been also delineated, according to the new business model concept that highlights the potential economic benefits of the solution.
Such assessment can be used to set up the detailed design of the PPS system that will also allow a deeper economic analysis through a Life Cycle Costing approach.
Free accessible LCA data are used to estimate the order of magnitude of concept’s environmental impacts. For this reason, the method also aims to foster the development of open initiatives, in order to share impact assessment data of existing products and services. This would enhance the effectiveness of the Sustainability Assessment by Analogy step. Further development of the method is necessary to enhance its consistency and applicability to a vast set of fields related to early stages design. A test in a real industrial or service environment will be the next effort toward that goal.
5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The financial support of Regione Toscana Project LILIT: I Living Labs per l’Industria Toscana (PAR FAS REGIONE TOSCANA Linea di Azione 1.1.a.3) is kindly acknowledged.
6. REFERENCES
Andrews, E. (2009) ‘First Steps towards Mapping the Economy's Genome’, Technology Innovation Management Review, July edition
Ang, Y., Yifan, L. (2012) ’Carbon Footprint Analysis for Baby Strollers’ Chinese Journal of Population Resources and Environment, 10(4), 16-21
Badurdeen, F., Wijekoon, K., Shuaib, M., Goldsby, T. J., Iyengar, D., Jawahir, I. S. (2010) ‘Integrated modeling to enhance resilience in sustainable supply chains’, Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), IEEE, 130-135.
Benoıt, C., Norris, G.A., Valdivia, S., Ciroth, A., Moberg, A., Bos, U., S. Prakash, S., Ugaya, C., Beck, T. (2010) ‘The guidelines for social life cycle assessment of products: Just in time!’, The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 15(2), pp. 156–163.
Bryant, C., Sivaramakrishnan, K., Van Wie, M., Stone, R., McAdams, D., (2004)
‘A Modular Design Approach to Support Sustainable Design’, in Proceedings
of DETC’04, DETC2004-57775, Salt Lake City, UT.
Cascini, G., Del Frate, L., Fantoni, G., Montagna, F. (2010) ‘Beyond the design perspective of Gero's FBS framework’, Design Computing and Cognition DCC’10. J.S. Gero (ed), 12–14 July 2010, Stuttgart, DE.
Cascini, G., Fantoni, G., Montagna, F. (2013) ‘Situating needs and requirements
in the FBS framework’, Design Studies,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2012.12.001. In press
Elkington, J. (1998). ‘Partnerships from cannibals with forks: The triple bottom line of 21st‐century business’ Environmental Quality Management, 8(1), pp. 37-51.
Deliege, E.J.M., Nijdam, D.S.C. (2009) EU Eco label for Bed Mattresses.
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/ecolabel/documents/bed_mattresses_report.pdf
(Accessed 22 March 2013).
Wolf, M, Pant, R, Chomkhamsri, K, Sala, S., Pennington, D. (2012). The International Reference Life Cycle DataSystem (ILCD) Handbook.
http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/111111111/25589/1/l bna24982enn.pdf (Accessed 22 March 2013).
Fantoni, G., Tosello, G., Gabelloni, D., Hansen, H.N. (2012) ‘Modelling injection moulding machines for micro manufacture applications through functional analysis’, in Proceedings of 1st CIRP Global Web Conference on Interdisciplinary Research in Production Engineering.
G.Fantoni, R.Apreda, D.Gabelloni, A.Bonaccorsi, ‘Do functions exist?’, in Proceedings of the International Conference on Engineering Design ICED11, Copenhagen.
Finnveden, G., Hauschild, M. Z., Ekvall, T., Guinée, J., Heijungs, R., Hellweg, S., Koehler, A., Pennington, D., Suh, S. (2009) ‘Recent developments in LCA’, Journal of environmental management, Vol. 91, Issue 1, pp. 1-21. Gabelloni, D., Fantoni, G., Apreda, R., Bonaccorsi, A. (2011) ‘On the link
between features and functions’, in Proceedings of the International Conference on Engineering Design ICED11, Copenhagen.
Gero, J.S. and Kannengiesser, U. (2002) ‘The Situated Function-Behaviour-Structure Framework’. Artificial Intelligence in Design, Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp 89–104.
Goedkoop M.J., van Halen C.J.G., te Riele H.R.M., Rommens, P.J.M. (1999) ‘Product service systems, ecological and economic basis’. Pricewa-terhouseCoopers N.V. / Pi!MC, Storrm C.S., Pre consultants.
Hayes P.J., (1979) ‘The naive physics manifesto’, D. Michie (Ed.), Expert Systems in the Micro-Electronic Age, Edinburgh Univ. Press, Edinburgh, pp. 242–270.
Hirschl, B., Konrad, W., Scholl, G. (2003) ‘New concepts in product use for sustainable consumption’, Journal of cleaner production,11(8), pp. 873-81. Hirtz, J., Stone, R., McAdams, D., Szykman, S., Wood, K., (2001) ‘Evolving a
Functional Basis for Engineering Design’, in Proceedings of DETC2001, DETC2001/DTM-21688, Pittsburgh, PA.
Jaafar, I. H., Venkatachalam, A., Joshi, K., Ungureanu, A. C., De Silva, N., Rouch, K. E., Dillon, O. W., Jawahir, I. S. (2007) ‘Product Design for
Sustainability: A New Assessment Methodology and Case Studies’, in Kurtz M (ed) Handbook of Environmentally Conscious Mechanical Design, John Wiley & Sons, 25-65.
Jawahir, I. S., Wanigarathne, P. C., Wang, X. (2006) ‘Product design and manufacturing processes for sustainability’, in Mechanical Engineers’ Handbook, 414-443.
Kalliala, E.M. and Nousiainen, P. (1999) ‘Life cycle assessment: environmental profile of cotton and polyester-cotton fabrics’. AUTEX Research Journal. Kaufman, R. A. and English F.W. (1979) ‘Needs assessment: Concept and
application’. Educational Technology.
Leontief, W. (1936) ‘Quantitative Input and Output Relations in the Economic Systems of the United States’, The Review of Economics and Statistics , Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 105-125.
Masoni, P., Sára, B., Scimìa, E., Raggi, A. (2004) ‘VerdEE: a tool for adoption of Life Cycle Assessment in small and medium sized enterprises in Italy’, Progress in Industrial Ecology, Vol. 1, nos. 1-3, pp. 203-228.
Maxwell, D., Sheate, W., Vorst, R. (2006) ‘Functional and systems aspects of the sustainable product and service development approach for industry’. Journal of cleaner production. 2006;14:1466–79.
McAdams, D. and Wood, K. (2000) ‘Quantitative Measures for Design by Analogy’, in Proceedings of ASME IDETC/CIE, Baltimore, Maryland, 2000, DETC2000/DTM-14562.
Moriguchi, Y., Kondo, Y., Shimizu, H. (1993) ‘Analyzing the life cycle impact of cars: the case of CO2’, Industry and Environment. 16 (1–2), pp. 42–45. Oehlberg, L., Agogino, A.M., Beckman, S.L. (2009) ‘Framing sustainability in
human-centered product design’, in Proceeding of ASME IDETC/CIE, Design Theory and Methodology, pp. 809-816.
Pahl, G. and Beitz, W. (1984) ‘Engineering Design: A Systematic Approach’, Design Council, London.
Phillips, R. and Reichart, J. (2000) ‘The Environment as a Stakeholder? A Fairness-Based Approach’, Journal of Business Ethics 23(2), pp. 185–197. Robert, K.H., Schmidt-Bleek,B., et al., (2002) ‘Strategic sustainable
development, selection, design and synergies of applied tools’, Journal of cleaner production,10:197-214.
Roy, R. (2000) ‘Sustainable product-service systems’, Futures 32.3: 289-299. Russo, D. (2011) ‘A Computer Aided Strategy for More Sustainable Products’, in
Cavallucci, et al. (eds.) Building Innovation Pipelines through Computer-Aided Innovation. IFIP AICT, vol. 355, pp. 149–162. Springer, Heidelberg. Russo, D., Bersano, G., Birolini, V., Uhl, R. (2011) ‘European testing of the
efficiency of TRIZ in eco-innovation projects for manufacturing SMEs’, in TRIZ future Conference 2010, Bergamo Italy.
Russo, D., Rizzi, C., Montelisciani, G. (2014) 'Inventive guidelines for a TRIZ-based eco-design matrix', Journal of Cleaner Production, 76, 95-105.
Sasajima, M., Kitamura, Y., Ikeda, M., Mizoguchi, R. (1996) ‘Representation Language for Behavior and Function: FBRL’, Expert Systems With Applications, 10 (3/4), pp 471-479.
Sarkis, J. (2003) ‘A strategic decision framework for green supply chain management’, Journal of cleaner production, Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 397-409.
Umeda, Y., Tomiyama, T., Yoshikawa, H. (1995) ‘FBS Modeling: Modeling scheme of function for conceptual design’, in Proceedings of the 9th Int. Workshop on Qualitative Reasoning, Amsterdam, NL, pp. 271-8.
Ulrich, K.T. and Eppinger, S.D. (1995) Product design and development, Vol. 384. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995.
UNEP (2011), Global Guidance Principles for Life Cycle Assessment Databases
http://lcinitiative.unep.fr/includes/file.asp?site=lcinit&file=1A7F8184-EE6E-413B-BF32-FBE1C0EDB5E7 (Accessed 22 March 2013).
Watkins, R., Meiers, M. W., Visser, Y. (2012) ‘A guide to assessing needs: essential tools for collecting information, making decisions, and achieving development results’, World Bank Publications.
Yu, J. S., Gonzalez-Zugasti, J. P., Otto, K. N. (1998) ‘Product Architecture Definition Based on Customer Demands’, in Proceedings of ASME Design Engineering Technical Conference, DETC 1998, Atlanta, GA.
